Formerly All My Pretty Ones

stale air

This time of year is just so BLAH. I had to do some maintenance on my car, including new tires, and that all set me back a good $700+. It’s the time of year I long to get away the most (probably why so many of my trips abroad pre-kid were during February). I filed my taxes. My grandma has been in and out of the hospital. My kid, boy oh boy is she testing my patience lately. She’s stuck inside and bouncing off the walls, and we are all going to kill each other sooner or later.

I went to the funeral of my first piano teacher. I sobbed as her granddaughter spoke, knowing that in the not-so-distant future, I will have to stand up there and speak about my own grandma. The truth is, I can’t imagine life without her in it. She’s been the base, the rock, the glue holding everything together. I’ve never not had my grandma to fall back on. Her house, with her in it, has been “home” for every single person in our family, but especially for my mom and I, and now M, too.

I’m at the end of my rope with my child, and she is at the end of her rope in general. Poor thing, she just needs to run and jump and explore and climb and dig, and it’s either pouring rain or negative wind chills. Instead of going outside, she breaks things, gets into everything she shouldn’t, pours things, spills things, hits and kicks, jumps from furniture to furniture, refuses things just for something to do (like getting dressed or into the car), and doing other crazy things, like running from me at the pool (and almost jumping into the deep end with no one there) or running naked through the YMCA. Yep, never a dull moment.

At night she can be especially difficult, but last night she awoke sobbing for a good 20 minutes. She said, “car coming! M fall down!” so I think she dreamed she was hit by a car. She had a total meltdown, demanding juice, then throwing it when I gave it to her, then screaming that her juice was gone, and repeat when I picked it up for her. She wanted grandma, not mama, then screamed she wanted mama not grandma. You get the picture. Eventually she fell asleep in the rocking chair. Oy.

What I wouldn’t do for a vacation!

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This is a really hard time of year for me, too. Add a toddler to it and it basically just sucks more than it doesn’t a lot of the time. I’m going to dig out my ‘happy lamp’ and see if that makes a difference.

I’m sorry to hear about your piano teacher. And I’m sad for you that you’re close (ish) to losing your grandma. I wish it wasn’t so.

I can identify with so much of this, including how much it hurts to lose a beloved grandma. I hope you get some peaceful moments soon, and that M gets some appropriately wild moments so you two can have a balanced day or two!

A mother and daughter chasing the horizon

"The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." -Christopher McCandless